Tired Old Man Fred Thompson

The bloom is off the rose.
The old, thorny rose that is Fred Thompson.

Thompson’s presumptive candidacy was such a joke, after all, way back before he entered the race. There was excitement and enthusiasm — among desperate Republicans, to be specific — but not for Thompson the man, the former lawyer and politician, but Thompson the actor, specifically for the Thompson characters on TV and in the movies. An admiral, a DA, a wise and authoritative tough guy, the same character over and over again — it was that character Republicans wanted to run, not the real-life Fred Thompson with the political past.

But what Republicans have now is the real-life Fred Thompson, and, whatever the poll numbers, he’s just not to their liking, not living up to expectations, because the expectations were unreal, because the characters are unreal, because “Fred Thompson,” as opposed to Fred Thompson, is a fiction. That fiction has fallen from grace, and the man along with it, the man wrapped up in the fiction, the man mistaken for the fiction.

In short:
Without that makeup and flattering lighting, Fred Thompson is Pruneface.